PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

As program development consultants, we are committed to strengthening our clients’ ability to succeed in their endeavors by identifying, creating and maintaining program components proven to make a difference. We work in collaboration with clients to identify program outcomes and select activities that show the most promise for achieving those outcomes. Our use of logic models and other tools facilitate program planning and development. We work with our clients to:

Assess community needs and assets. We use a triangulation approach when working with our clients to examine and prioritize community needs and take stock of community assets. We collect and analyze existing information, as well as engage in primary data collection efforts, including in-depth interviews, surveys and focus groups. Based on our strong belief that program success is best achieved with the input of key stakeholders, engaging the community is a priority. During this phase, we also document key external factors, including potential funding sources, prospective program partners, and facilitating factors and barriers that may impact program effectiveness.

Identify short-term, intermediary, and long-term program outcomes. Clearly delineating program goals and outcomes is vital to program success. Outcome identification facilitates the development of effective program activities and sets the stage for practical program evaluation. Ideally, the identification of desired program outcomes takes place before program implementation. However, we work with our clients at any phase of the planning, implementation or evaluation process to clearly outline the key short-term, intermediary, and long-term goals upon which program success will be based.

Select activities to achieve desired outcomes. Once our clients determine what they want to achieve, we work with them to design a plan for how to achieve it. We build upon a solid knowledge of psychosocial behavioral change theories to help select program activities most likely to produce desired outcomes. We also conduct extensive reviews of best practice research and evaluation reports of similar program efforts in order to garner the information necessary to help clients develop effective, evidence-based program strategies.

Continually evaluate and improve program. We believe that evaluation should not only be used to prove program success, but that it is an essential element of continued program development. Please see the “Program Evaluation” section for more detailed information about the evaluation services we provide.

Jodie did an amazing job leading our research and pulling together a dynamic research team. In addition to being incredibly insightful and an excellent moderator, she and her team were extremely professional, fantastically organized, and thorough— one could not ask for a better collaborator!”